Dante's Prayer
by Carfiniel
Summary: Harry considers the war so far, the darkness that has swallowed him, and the curse that seems to surround his love.


**Dante's Prayer**

_Music and Lyrics by Loreena McKennit_

_When the dark wood fell before me_

_And all the paths were overgrown_

There have been days when I thought this war would never end.  There have been days when I thought my life would never end.  Even worse, there have been days I have longed for both.  Then there are times when I know that feeling that way means I'm approaching the edge of madness…but there's nothing I can do about that, is there?

I have been through a darkness so profound that its very memory gives a shape to fear.

The most frightening thing about that darkness is that it was not inflicted upon me by someone else.  I found it within myself.  I remember Tom Riddle telling me--and he was right--how much like him I am:  "Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles.  Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself.  We even look something alike...But after all it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me...."  And after all, I'd have done well in Slytherin.

He meant it was a lucky chance that saved me from him when I was a baby.  I don't think there are any lucky chances left for me.  I've gone too far down that dark forest path; it's too late to save me from becoming him.

_When the priests of pride say there is no other way_

_I tilled the sorrows of stone_

I know Dumbledore said it was our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.  But looking back at the choices I've made, that isn't much comfort.  And how far back do I go?  One little choice of Gryffindor over Slytherin doesn't count for much, when I consider all the rules I chose to break, all the times I returned Draco's malice with malice of my own, the burning desire I had to murder Peter Pettigrew.  What about the choice I made to share the Triwizard Cup with Cedric?  That got him killed.  Or the choice I made not to tell Cho how I felt about her, and those last careless words between us that sent her into danger and got her killed.  What about the choice I made to send Minerva McGonagall to Malfoy Manor, to learn what the Death Eaters were planning?  She was caught, tortured, and sent back to us a broken woman--broken in spirit and broken of heart, even if her mind was whole.

I was the one who chose to approve Draco's plan to conduct guerilla-style warfare out of the Highlands.  I was the one who chose his death for him.  How he would hate it, to know that I took the blame for that.  "Give over, Potter," he'd say.  "As if you ever had any control over my life or death."  But we both would know he was wrong.

I was the one who chose to run off in search of Avalon, leaving Dumbledore to defend the school by himself.  I, who thought to walk so blithely through death's kingdom.  And I left only death behind me.

_I did not believe because I could not see_

_Though you came to me in the night_

I have this recurring dream that started several months ago.  I dream it nearly every night, that my parents come to me and put their hands on my shoulders and say, "Well done, Harry."  And I know, in my dream, that I'm dead, and that makes me happy.  That's what makes me believe I truly am mad.  I live in a mad world anyway, why shouldn't I be mad along with it?  Then perhaps it will all start to make sense to me again.

Was there ever a time the world made sense to me?  I feel as though I've been frightened and confused my entire life.

_When the dawn seemed forever lost_

_You showed me your love in the light of the stars_

But it always seems that somehow, when I'm at my darkest moments, Sirius comes back.  His life is one of constant danger, and he spent thirteen years in Azkaban, and yet he can still smile.  He's even kept his sanity--clinging to it with bloody fingernails perhaps, but even so.  When he's here, the darkness has less substance.  My parents chose well when they named him my godfather.  We need each other to remind us of something.  Sometimes I think they made me his responsibility to give him something to live for, after they were gone.

Whenever Sirius is in Glen Famhair, he attracts people like a magnet, and sighs turn to laughter.  George and Fred have that effect on the younger ones, but Sirius can bring a smile to Lupin's face, and that's rare, even with his family.

_Cast your eyes on the ocean_

_Cast your soul to the sea_

_When the dark night seems endless_

_Please remember me_

Sirius is one of the few people who makes me feel I am myself.  The other person who does that, of course, is Ginny.  When I'm with her, I know I must be better than I believe I am, because she knew Tom Riddle--knew him more intimately than any of the rest of us ever could--and she hated him.  She could never love me if I were truly like him.  And, God help her, she does love me.

How did an annoying little girl with a tendency to squeak and drop things turn into one of the shining beacons of hope in my life?  I suppose the same way a baby who was lucky enough to be loved by his mother turned out to be the tarnished hero who saved that girl from destruction.  We have needed each other, in ways no ordinary man and woman could understand.

I have tried not to show it when other people are around, because I have considered my love to be a curse.  So many people whom I have loved have died.  My parents, Cho, Draco, Dumbledore.  Even worse if they have loved me, too.  My mother's love for me was the reason Voldemort killed her.  I don't want that for Ginny.

_Then the mountain rose before me_

_By the deep well of desire_

I know my distance frightens Ginny.  It isn't that I don't love her; I do, with every fibre of my being.  I need her with a terrible, fierce need that scares me, if I'm honest.  She's so warm and bright and loving, and I'm, well, not.  I'm lost in a dark wood of despair, and so cold I feel like my bones are shaking sometimes, and as for loving--well, I remember that I love people, I know in my head that I love people.  I just...don't always feel love for people.  There have been so many lost.

Hermione watches me.  I know she knows some of what is going on inside me.  I think she believes I don't feel the losses, but I do.  Each face, each name, is graven in my heart until the day I die.

Too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart.

_From the fountain of forgiveness_

_Beyond the ice and the fire_

She loved Draco.  Of course she did.  It was funny how we all found out we could love someone we had hated...even though I kept on hating him, I loved him.  I felt bad for Ron, because he took it so hard.  But Hermione helped him with it.  Ginny was the one I really worried about, but there was nothing I could do to help her.  We didn't see much of each other; she runs the camp, and I run the war, along with General Lupin...and Headmaster Dumbledore, before.  It's odd how everyone was given a military rank except Dumbledore.  He was always content for us to call him the Headmaster.

But whenever I saw Ginny, she acted bright and cheerful for me, as if she were afraid I was too brittle to handle her supposed betrayal, and her grief.  The odd thing is, I understood.  It didn't bother me, somehow, that she had loved Draco.  I suppose because it reassured me that if I died in this war, and I seem likely to do, she could go on living without me.  It made me more free to love her, not less, because she wasn't dependent on me for all her happiness.

And she couldn't understand that.  Couldn't see why the less she needed me, the more I could love her.  It took a long time for us to sort that out.  Finally, when we all thought Ron had vanished, and Hermione was walking around like the heart had been ripped out of her chest, and Ginny could finally grieve openly, I realized I had to make things rights between us.  I had to give her complete honesty, and ask for the same in return, because alone we were slowly falling to pieces.

_Cast your eyes on the ocean_

_Cast your soul to the sea_

_When the dark night seems endless_

_Please remember me_

I have blood on these hands, and some of that blood is Draco's.  Amazingly, I never thought Ginny might blame me for that, and thank God that she proved herself merciful in that.

When I went searching for her, on the same night that Ron was fated to return home safely, I found her on the battlements of the dun, her flame-coloured hair flying loose about her, her blue robes sweeping off her shoulders and making her look like a fierce Celtic queen.  Her brown eyes were fixed on the horizon, watching for Charlie to return with news from Percy.

_Though we share this humble path, alone_

_How fragile is the heart_

It had taken Ron's disappearance for Percy to believe this was truly a war, that Voldemort truly had risen, that Fudge had deceived himself to the point of embracing Voldemort's evil himself.  Percy had firmly gathered up the reins of power in the Ministry, ousting Fudge and declaring himself Minister-in-Interim, and no one had come forward to speak against it.  With the Ministry on our side, we had discovered our first hope that we might win this war.  But that help was late in coming, when the uneven tombs covered the even plains and our silent dead shouted reproach that they had fallen while we stood alone.  So many wasted years.  So many wasted lives.

It had broken Ginny's heart.

She stood like a queen, like a goddess, facing the wind with defiance and hope struggling on her face.  I waited with her, for what seemed hours, as the mountains swallowed the sun and the red stormclouds built in the distance, too far from us to relieve the drought that had parched the Highlands that summer.  We didn't talk much, but when I told her I knew she had loved him, she turned to me and buried her face in my chest.  I held her while she cried, and I even managed to shed a few tears myself, relieving the huge horrible pressure that had been building in my chest for months.

And, as if in answer, the thunder rumbled above us, and a huge gust of wind swept across the battlements.  We saw a dragon settle into the courtyard, saw two people jump down, and one head for Phoenician quarters behind the dun.  The other stayed to tend the dragon and settle it into the cave that served as stable for our motley herds; and then the rain began in earnest.  We stood there together for a long time, but finally shouting in the courtyard below us made us curious enough to descend.

Ron had come back to us, and he was going to marry our Hermione.

_Oh give these clay feet wings to fly_

_To touch the face of the stars_

Ron and Hermione's wedding gave us all a bit of renewed hope.  Life seemed a little less futile, because they believed in each other strongly enough to make themselves into a family.  Even the Minister-in-Interim managed to attend, and Hermione's parents.  I always feel sorry for the kind, confused Grangers--poor Muggles who got themselves caught up in a war they don't understand, just because their daughter is my best friend.  But they accepted the Fidelius Charm with equanimity, and they were truly happy to see their daughter marry Ron.

"Aren't you afraid?" I asked Hermione, half an hour before she stood with Ron in the misty dawn, to speak their vows before God and witnesses.

  
She didn't pretend not to understand.  "Of course I'm afraid, Harry.  The more a thing is perfect the more it feels of pleasure and pain."  She put a hand on my cheek.  "But that's no reason not to strive for perfection."

Isn't it?

_Breathe life into this feeble heart_

_Lift this mortal veil of fear_

Their first child was born barely a year after their wedding, a handsome little fellow with thick red hair and covered in freckles, whom Ron named Draco.  Hermione said dryly that the original Draco was rolling over in his grave at having a Weasley named after him, and Ron actually laughed.  "All the Weasleys have red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford," he said, glancing at me.

I was surprised and--I admit it--hurt when Ron pulled me aside and told me they were naming Seamus as Draco's godfather.  I tried to speak around the lump in my throat, tried to pretend it was alright, but Ron knows me too well.  He leaned closer to look me in the eyes and gripped my shoulder hard.  "I'll only say this once, Harry, so listen well.  I'm naming Seamus as Draco's godfather, instead of you, because I expect that within the year you'll be his uncle."  He shook his head when I would have protested.  "She loves you, you crazy git.  And I know you love her.  Don't let it pass, Harry.  Don't let something that wonderful slip through you fingers.  You have no idea--"  He stopped talking and cleared his throat.

"Don't you understand that I have work to do?" I asked him, wishing I felt more anger and less fear, instead of the other way around.  "The human race, wizards and Muggles alike, faces an enemy more terrible than they understand.  Someone has to stop him, and somehow I'm the one who has to do it.  That's my work.  And if I were selfish and stupid enough to marry my widow and father orphans on her, it would only distract me from that work.  If I fail, how many millions of people will die?"

"Because I love you, I won't kill you for saying that," Ron said, narrowing his eyes at me.  "But if I hear you talk about my sister like that again, I will."

I dropped my head and looked at the ground, because he was right.  I knew it, and it scared the hell out of me, but he was right.  Then he slapped me on the shoulder.  "Go on, mate.  Don't think Draco would be holding back, if he were still around."

_Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears_

_We'll rise above these earthly cares_

Ginny was the one who came looking for me, that day.  She found me where I'd found her the year before, up on the battlements, staring at the empty horizon and wishing for a battle to fight instead of the slow, grinding stalemate we had endured for the past five months.  "You wear yourself out with these self-recriminations," she said in a low voice.

I turned to face her.  "Do you ever fear that we're just pawns, living out a life that's already been scripted for us?  That everything we do is pointless, because we don't have any choice but to do it?"

She shook her head.  "I believe we have freedom of choice, Harry.  We choose how we will live, we choose the friends we will love and the battle we will fight.  In the end, perhaps the only thing we don't choose is how we die.  But if we live fully, isn't that what matters, more than how we die?"

I went to stand in front of her, aching to put my arms around her, but afraid to embrace the life I truly wanted.  "I'm afraid to lose you, Gin."

She smiled.  "You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us?" she whispered, and a chill ran down my spine.  Those had been Dumbledore's words when he spoke of my parents.  I felt tears gathering in my eyes, and perhaps she misinterpreted them, because she said, "This has been willed where what is willed must be, Harry.  You and I are meant for each other.  And if you won't admit that today, I'll wait until you do.  I'll wait forever if I have to."

_Cast your eyes on the ocean_

_Cast your soul to the sea_

It doesn't mean the war is over.  Even with the Ministry's help, we're still a long way from defeating Voldemort and his minions.  But our list of allies grows, as more and more people realize that the only way to defeat this evil is to work together.  We have the advantage, too, that betrayal is elemental to the darkness.  Some of Dumbledore's last words to me were words of encouragement, reminding me of Peter Pettigrew, the traitor beside whose guilt Lucius Malfoy's sins will shine like virtue--reminding me that I had saved Pettigrew's life, and that the bond between us would cause Pettigrew to turn on his master like an ungrateful dog.

All the same, we're not out of the darkness.  The dawn is still far off, and the night has been full of tears.  I've begun to believe that perhaps the night will end, bringing the end of the war.  I've begun to hope that the night will end, and I will live to see it.  I've begun to see that even in the darkest night, you can find the light of the stars.

_When the dark night seems endless_

_Please remember me_

Remember me.  Not because I'm leaving you, or because I'm exiling myself from this world, not because I'm seeking the end of my life--but because perhaps, if you remember me, then I won't forget myself.

_Please remember me_

**************

**A/N:  Many sources contributed to this fic, most heavily, Ciardi's beautiful translation of _The Inferno_ by Dante (an obvious choice, I think!).**

"its very memory gives a shape to fear" is from _The Inferno by Dante Alighieri._

"Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles.  Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself.  We even look something alike...But after all it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me...."  is from _Chamber of Secrets._

"who thought to walk so blithely through death's kingdom" is from _The Inferno._

"Too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart," is from…Yeats, I think?  An Irish poet, anyway.

"the uneven tombs covered the even plains" is from _The Inferno._

"The more a thing is perfect the more it feels of pleasure and pain," is from _The Inferno_.

"The human race…faces an enemy more terrible than they understand.  Someone has to stop him, and somehow I'm the one who has to do it.  That's my work.  And if I were selfish and stupid enough to marry my widow and father orphans on her, it would only distract me from that work.  If I fail, how many millions of people will die?" is from _Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card._

"You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us?" is from _Prisoner of Azkaban._

"This has been willed where what is willed must be," is from _The Inferno_.

"the traitor beside whose guilt…sins will shine like virtue," is from _The Inferno_.


End file.
